The Land of Failed
Government . . .

By

J. Duncan Moore Jr.

Updated Aug. 26, 1996 12:01 a.m. ET

CHICAGO--It got windy around here even before the Democrats' love-fest started. As the ACLU argued with the city over where protesters would be allowed to demonstrate, a political press corps that dropped in for a week's worth of expense-account festivities was ladling out a dross of teary, gassy reminiscences.

Let the tourists gush. The rest of us are busy tracking down our mail, trying to get to work on time on Chicago's decrepit public transit, scraping up the tuition for a parochial school and wondering whether the...